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Townspeople searched the woods for weeks, but no sign of Lucy was ever found. But every so often, someone stumbles across the road, winding through the woods, and sees a girl running down it, dressed in a white dress with a blue ribbon. You can never catch up with her, they say, and you will find yourself alone in the bewildering woods, with no sign of a road or a girl or a clear way home.

So be careful what roads you take, and be careful who you follow down them.

INTERVIEW

SARA DONOGHUE

May 9, 2017

Sara Donoghue sits in the interview room. It is hard to tell what sort of building it might belong to. The walls are cinder block, painted a dingy white. An empty metal bookshelf stands against one wall; the table in the center is a cheap folding picnic table.

Dr. Andrew Ashford enters the room and settles into the chair opposite Sara Donoghue once again. Ashford is black, dark skinned, hair silver. A dark web of scars puckers the skin on the back of one hand. He carries a briefcase, which he sets beside him on the floor. Sara Donoghue, in contrast, is a slight girl with medium-brown hair. She wears black jeans, a black tank top, and a black sweater that has slipped down one shoulder, baring a freckled shoulder. She seems tucked in on herself and tense with nervous energy.

ASHFORD: I’m sorry about that. Our equipment is usually reliable, but we occasionally encounter technical difficulties around these sorts of events.

Sara looks to the side, as if uninterested.

ASHFORD: Tell me about your sister.

SARA: Becca?

ASHFORD: Do you have another sister?

SARA: No, it’s just—what do you want to know? There’s a lot in the reports. Official records.

ASHFORD: I want to know about your sister from your perspective. Before her disappearance. What was she like? Did she have a lot of friends?

Sara hesitates. She speaks carefully, as if worried Ashford will get the wrong impression.

SARA: She had us. The five of us.

ASHFORD: The “Wildcats”?

SARA: Yeah. But by the time she disappeared, we weren’t really hanging out together anymore. We hit high school, and Anthony and Trina got involved with sports. Mel started spending all her time with the theater kids, and Becca... I don’t really know what happened with Becca.

ASHFORD: Did she have other friends?

SARA: She was friendly with almost everyone. But she didn’t have close friends, other than us.

ASHFORD: She didn’t meet anyone new she clicked with?

SARA: You mean her boyfriend? I guess. But she was never serious about him.

ASHFORD: What makes you say that?

SARA: She liked him because he listened to her. But they didn’t belong together.

Sara chews on her thumbnail.

SARA: You always got the sense she didn’t belong here at all.

ASHFORD: Did that have anything to do with the fact that she was adopted?

SARA: What? No. I mean, it wasn’t always easy for her, I guess. Briar Glen’s about as white as you can get, and people can be pretty racist even if they don’t mean to be, but at least at home, that was never a problem. It wasn’t aboutnotbelonging, I guess. More like she deserved to belong somewhere... bigger. Better.

ASHFORD: Like where?

SARA: New York. LA. Paris. Someplace where her art could really take off.